I wasn’t sure if I’d be the target audience for Prime Video’s new period romance My Lady Jane and I admit that in the first few minutes I considered turning it off and watching something else. But I’m glad I didn’t. I’ve now watched the first two episodes of the season and it’s surprisingly entertaining, though I have a few nits to pick. This is guilty-pleasure TV, pure and simple. I’m hooked.
The series, created by Gemma Burgess and based on the novel by Jodi Meadows, Brodi Ashton and Cynthia Hand, stars Emily Bader as Lady Jane Grey, Edward Bluemel as Lord Guildford Dudley and Jordan Peters as the sickly Edward VI. The supporting cast includes Jim Broadbent, Rob Brydon, Anna Chancellor along with plenty of other talented actors.
Our tale begins not long after the death of King Henry VIII, the Tudor king famous for his many wives, his break with the Roman Catholic Church and formation of the Church of England, and his general ill-temper. But this is a fantasy version of England in which people called Ethians live. Ethians can change into their animal form at will, though each one only has one form. Regular people—known as Verity—do not possess this magic but they do make the laws and have effectively cast out the Ethians from society, banishing them into the wilderness, though many remain and a group called The Pack has taken up banditry and other outlaw practices.
The series revolves around Lady Jane Grey who, in actual history, briefly became Queen of England for just nine days before having her head lopped off. The show makes it clear that it is not interested at all in the true history—obviously, given the Ethian fantasy stuff—and will tell a very different version of events. In this version, Jane and her family find themselves penniless after the death of Jane’s father who, thanks to the patriarchy, left the entire estate to an uncle, the Duke of Leicester (Broadbent) a rather grotesque old man with old-fashioned ideas about women and disgusting feet.
Jane, you see, is not at all interested in old-fashioned ideas about women or marriage. She wants to be independent. She has dreams of publishing a book about medicinal herbs. When her mother sets up an arranged marriage and forces her to wed, she tries to run away and when that fails she turns to her cousin, the king. What follows is a series of mishaps and adventures and a pretty damn good “will they / won’t they” type romance that’s actually quite a lot more charming than I expected. I won’t spoil the details, but there are some very fun twists and turns in just the first couple episodes. The show really nails the tone right from the get-go and I always admire a series that understands itself and what it wants to be and then does that unabashedly. (Like Hulu’s The Great, for instance, which is in the same genre).
Where I deign to pick at nits is in the annoying choice to include modern day music fairly often throughout the episodes and end-credits. I don’t mind the modern day dialogue. It’s actually very witty. At one point, Jane asks a man she meets at a tavern “Do you come here often?” and the narrator (who frequently adds bits of backstory or jest to the mix) notes that she is the first person to have ever used this line and already regrets it. I just really don’t like modern rock songs playing over a period piece, no matter how silly and ahistorical it may be.
The only other real complaint I have is how thick they layer on the girlboss stuff in the beginning, though I think this was done on purpose because for all her bluster, Jane is actually thwarted in all of her attempts to gain freedom and independence, and is actually a lot more naive than she realizes.
On top of the great characters, there’s a layer of mystery surrounding King Edward’s mysterious affliction, a deeper conspiracy involving various characters, some fun politicking and court intrigue and so forth. Again, I’m only two episodes in but I’m very much looking forward to watching more. There’s some great comedic stuff here, and I’d say more about the influences it wears on its revisionist sleeve but I fear that might be spoilery and you really don’t want to be spoiled. Trust me. The cast is great. The leads are charming. The mystery is intriguing. The fantasy stuff adds layers that other similar shows lack—I love The Great, but this is like The Great with magic.
In fact, I enjoyed the first two episodes so much that I downloaded the book on my Kindle (it’s free with Kindle Unlimited, by the way) just to see how faithful the adaptation is. What I will say, from the couple chapters I read, is that it sticks to the novel’s tone—rather whimsical with a strong narrator voice—but adds in a lot of swearing and some other things that I think it could have left out (not that I’m a prude, but I don’t really see the need to add f-bombs when the source material doesn’t have them). There’s also a pretty significant change to the backstory around King Henry and the status of the Ethians and I’m really not sure what to make of it, though I suppose all may be explained as the season continues.
You can watch My Lady Jane on Amazon Prime Video now, as all eight episodes are live. Here’s hoping it’s renewed for a second season.
Are you watching My Lady Jane? What do you think of the series? Let me know on Twitter and Facebook.
